Temperance Work
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We have a work to do along temperance lines besides that of
speaking in public. We must present our principles in pamphlets and
in our papers. We must use every possible means of arousing our
people to their duty to get into connection with those who know not
the truth. The success we have had in missionary work has been
fully proportionate to the self-denying, self-sacrificing efforts we have
made. The Lord alone knows how much we might have accomplished
if as a people we had humbled ourselves before Him and proclaimed
the temperance truth in clear, straight lines....
* * * * *
A Right Use of the Gifts of Providence
Our Creator has bestowed His bounties upon man with a liberal
hand. Were all these gifts of Providence wisely and temperately em-
ployed, poverty, sickness, and distress would be well-nigh banished
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from the earth. But alas, we see on every hand the blessings of God
changed to a curse by the wickedness of men.
There is no class guilty of greater perversion and abuse of His
precious gifts than are those who employ the products of the soil in the
manufacture of intoxicating liquors. The nutritive grains, the healthful,
delicious fruits, are converted into beverages that pervert the senses and
madden the brain. As a result of the use of these poisons, thousands of
families are deprived of the comforts and even the necessaries of life,
acts of violence and crime are multiplied, and disease and death hurry
myriads of victims to a drunkard’s grave.
This work of destruction is carried on under the protection of the
laws of the land! For a paltry sum, men are licensed to deal out to their
fellow-men the potion that shall rob them of all that makes this life
desirable and of all hope of the life to come. Neither the law-maker
nor the liquor-seller is ignorant of the result of his work. At the hotel
bar, in the beer-garden, at the saloon, the slave of appetite expends his
means for that which is destructive to reason, health, and happiness.
The liquor-seller fills his till with the money that should provide food
and clothing for the family of the poor drunkard.
This is the worst kind of robbery. Yet men in high positions in
society and in the church lend their influence in favor of license laws!